Post by Jorge on Jul 5, 2006 10:00:23 GMT -5
kukiyoshitaka said:
mortis said:
The Soviets were on the allied side Were you routing for the Nazis then?
The Soviets were on the allied side by the end of the war. At the beginning they were not really on the axis side but they were not against them either, so many people consider them to have been part of the axis initially. What happened is Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact, and after Hitler had subdued or allied with nearly all of Western Europe (save for the British Isles of course), he turned against Stalin randomly, desiring to seize Moscow and beat back the Russians as well.
Stalin first divided up Poland with Hitler but afterwards the Soviet Union did not just sit around as many people think. They wanted to obtain parts of Kareliya from Finland in exchange for very large territorial concessions. The deal wasn't that bad, except that most of Finland's population was centered in the area that the USSR wanted. Eventually the Soviets went to war with the Finns, and they outnumbered them by really f*cking incredible amounts. The Finns used winter camouflage, snipers and strategic attacks to beat back the Soviets though. They also had the advantage of skis, which allowed them to mobilize infantry much, much quicker than the Russians in the weather. Though the Soviets did not learn all of their tactics from the Finns, they did get a lesson on defensive warfare. More importantly the Germans looked upon the situation of the Winter War between Soviets and Finland with spies and observers. Developing an opinion that the Soviets sucked balls, Hitler decided that conquering Moscow would be an easy task. He was right and wrong. It was at first simple but eventually the war turned into a stalemate and finally, at Stalingrad, as time went on, German morale plummeted and Russia decisively beat the Nazis back. The rest is, as they say, history.
The Winter War is not studied that much, but really it was a decisive point in World War II that is too often overlooked. If you want information on the biggest battle that occurred, then take a look at this site: ( www.winterwar.com/Battles/Suomussalmi.htm ). If you don't want to read that much just go to wikipedia to check out how big each force was and then take a look at the second page of the Winter War site and see how much the Finns plundered. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Winter War is that one Finnish soldier, named Simo Häyhä, managed to rack up the record for kills with a sniper weapon (in his case an M28). He shot down over 500 Soviets, and got even more enemies with a submachine gun. The Soviets called him 'White Death' because he dressed in a completely white camouflage suit. My friend called him 'The Messiah.'
I want to ask soemthing: is it just as hot at your homes as it around here? It's around 30 degrees Celsius! And that's freaking hot for Holland.
No, but having returned from Europe I can say that another heat wave is on the rise. The temperature and climate of Florence could quite frankly be likened to that of Death Valley's. And the rest of Europe was surprisingly hot too, even London, which I heard is usually glum and rainy.
Another elaborate explanation however mines was simple